Johnny Mercyside

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Monday, March 05, 2012

The Mercy Side: Building a Dynasty

Hey there and thanks for joining me for my first football
article in three and a half months. Things are a little different for this
article though, I’m not going to talk about Liverpool. No I’m not talking about
England either. I’m going to talk about Chelsea.

Unless you’ve lived under a rock (or, are not a football fan
and if that’s the case why are you even reading this?) you might have heard
that Chelsea manager Andre Villas Boas was sacked yesterday. Some have said it
was justified. I mean, since Roman Abramovich has come in with his billions of
pounds, no manager has had a worse percentage win rate or a worse
points-per-game rate. He managed the team for 40 games, and only won half of
them. Not since Glen Hoddle, sixteen years ago, has in fact done worse than
Villas Boas. But they never built Rome in a day, and if Roman Abramovich wants
to build a dynasty, he needs to have a long-term plan.

Villas Boas was perfect for Chelsea. It’s probably quite a
controversial thing to say, but it’s my humble opinion that this was so. Why?
Chelsea needed a young, fresh mind. Villas Boas was seen as a ‘new Mourinho’, a
Portugese mastermind with a keen eye for tactics. He did wonders at Porto, and
is an exceptionally young manager at the age of 34; Henrique Hilario is two
years older, Paulo Ferreira, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba, only one year
younger. Some could say too young, but I’m of the opinion that it doesn’t
matter how young or old a manager is, all that matters is that they’re a strong
character and can back up their skills with style.

Andre Villas Boas.

And Villas Boas did just that. For a man of 34, he had
balls. He did, truly. When criticised on Match of the Day, or by other pundits,
he’d actually call them out and tell them where to go. He was a frank man;
always spoke his mind and was vocal in a way a leader should be. I really liked
Villas Boas, and I’m a Liverpool fan, as I’m sure many of you are aware. He was
deep in the thick of it and while he did struggle to swim against the tide, he
gave it his best shot.

As I said, he’s 34 years old, and was put in that job for
one reason – long-term success. If you put a manager at a football club for
long term success you have to realise that you’re going to struggle short term
because of it. It’s impossible to build a house without creating your base.
Andre Villas Boas was entering a Chelsea team that was in the middle of
transition, a team that still IS in the middle of transition. The old guard are
getting older; Petr Cech and Jose Bosingwa are 29, John Terry, and Ashley Cole
are 31 and Frank Lampard is 34. And this is the most chosen starting 11 for
Chelsea this season. This is the starting 11 that Villas Boas was looking to,
to ‘freshen’ this aging side.

I’m not saying Villas Boas is faultless in this torrid
Chelsea season. He decided to bench Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba a lot, and
back instead an inconsistent Ramires and an absolutely atrocious Fernando
Torres. This has been difficult for Villas Boas, I mean, it says something that
33 year old Frank Lampard has scored more goals for Chelsea than any other
player this season. He is still required; it’s as simple as that. But when you
have a Drogba that’s a shadow of his former self, looking backwards instead of
forwards, also at the age of 33 but your £50 million striker just can’t score,
what else can you do?

The 'old guard' aren't getting any younger.

The Fernando Torres situation is difficult for Chelsea and
was for Villas Boas. Obviously from a biased Liverpool perspective it’s great,
we got £50 million big ones and got Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll, who are
looking better and better as the season is going on. But if I’m being unbiased
here, Torres-gate is awful for Chelsea. To spend such a big amount of money on
a player, and he just can’t score is terrible. What can you do in a situation
like that? Sell him? It’s not as easy as that. With him not scoring he’s not
going to be sold for a decent price. Also, we all know that Torres, when
motivated, when on form, can be the deadliest striker in the world. I mean that
by the way, and that’s not me being a biased fan.

Villas Boas was trying to freshen things up. He bought 20
year old Oriol Romeu, 18-year-old Romelu Lukaku and the excellent 23-year-old
Juan Mata, while selling 29 year old Alex and 32-year-old Nicolas Anelka. The
age of the squad was definitely getting younger. And the old guard all got a
chance; they’ve all played games this season, with mixed results. It’s not as
if Drogba and Petr Cech have had stellar seasons. It was a tough job for him.
It’s a tough ask for anybody, you can’t inherit say that Villas Boas was the
reason everything went wrong, just like you can’t say that Jose Mourinho was
the main reason Chelsea did so well. Mourinho came to Chelsea in 2004 and won
the title that season. Well done Mourinho. But seven of the eleven were players
he inherited by Claudio Ranieri. Here’s the squad:

Cech

Ferreria

Carvalho

Terry

Gallas

Makalele

Tiago

Lampard

Cole

Duff

Gudjohnsen

There’s the 7 players inherited from the team left by
Ranieri. And then Mourinho continued to lay more foundations onto this team,
and they were the best team in England for a good few years. But then
Manchester United, and Alex Ferguson kept renewing his squad, and took the
mantle again. It’s no coincidence. If you want to look at building football dynasties
all you have to do is look at Manchester United now, and Liverpool in the
eighties. Year and years of one step backwards, two steps forward. But
Abramovich will never let his managers take that second step forward, apart
from Mourinho, who was a very special manager, and also inherited the nucleus
of an excellent squad.

Kenny Dalglish and Bob Paisley are two of Liverpool’s most
successful managers, but history says if it wasn’t for Bill Shankly, they
wouldn’t have inherited world beating squads. Alex Ferguson has continuously
shed his squad’s skin, to make them a world force for the past 25 years. His
longevity as manager, as well as the patience shown by the ‘powers that be’ in
the United hierarchy, gives him the patience and time to rebuild his squad
again and again. United sucked at certain times in the past 25 years. In fact,
they sucked in the late eighties. But Ferguson being one of the best managers
in world football even 25 years ago, along with the patience and time given
there, and the collapse of Liverpool, meant that Ferguson has rarely looked
back since winning his first title back in 1993. United weren’t very good from
2003 to 2007. But as I said, Ferguson shed the skin of the squad, got in some
fresh youth and good buys, combined that with the good of what he still had,
and then became a great force again.

So, I don’t really blame Villas Boas. You have some very
strong personalities in that squad, a strong set of older players who can’t
take it they’re slowly starting to get past their best, and would rather they
stay in that squad, with their big salaries and even bigger egos, than accept
that it may be time to move on, and let the youngsters have a go. They’re too
afraid of their positions in their squad, and the money they earn, that they’d
rather sacrifice their manager than their positions in the team. Look at Jamie
Carragher. Is he happy to be on the bench? No, but he’s not complaining about
it. Frank Lampard has been scoring goals, so it is a slightly different
situation, but at the same time the principle is there.

Bill Shankley built a dynasty. He'd have no chance under Abramovich.

But the person at fault the most is Roman Abramovich. How is
a manager supposed to operate a team if the owner doesn’t place the trust in
him, and instead of the rebellious players? The players control the dressing room,
and it’s not right. And when they get taken down a notch, they complain to the
owner, who takes their side. How long must the older players be selfish before
the managers don’t want to take the chance and manage Chelsea? It’s pathetic.

Abramovich has quite a lot of models to take inspiration
from. In the past you have Liverpool. The 1960s Shankly built the base. In the
1970s and 1980s Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Kenny Dalglish built the dynasty. In
the present, you have Manchester United, and in the 1990s and 2000s Alex
Ferguson has made his base, built his dynasty and maintained it.

And for the future? Well, who can predict it, but at the
moment you can look at Manchester City. Yes City have more money than Chelsea
do, but it’s comparing a billionaire to a billionaire in the end of the day.
But under City, Roberto Mancini has built a base. If they win the league or not
this season, they’re currently building their dynasty. Mancini started by
taking the reins from Mark Hughes, finishing 5th in 2010 and getting
to the semi finals of the Carling Cup, then 3rd last season and
winning the FA Cup. This season at the moment they’re top of the league. As I
said even if they don’t win the league chances are they’ll be mighty close to
the champions, where as they finished 9 points adrift last season. Of course
all of this could be pointless if the Sheiks at City sack Mancini if he ‘fails’
and doesn’t win the league, but I just feel the Sheiks seem to have more
patience, much more. Mancini could have been sacked once or twice so far, so it
seems like he’s given more time there than any Chelsea manager gets from
Abramovich.

Like it or not, but Alex Ferguson didn't just build a dynasty, he's maintained it.

In the end, history is there to show that long term planning
usually means better prospects. Newcastle sacked loads of managers and have
been relegated and promoted for that. Liverpool are evidence that long term
planning is usually the way, so are Manchester United. Arsenal and Everton have
long term managers and have had mixed results, but mixed to exceptionally
positive results at that; Arsenal were once The Invincibles, not to mention
that at one point Everton got 4th place and a Champions League spot
under David Moyes. Roman Abramovich really needs to be patient. Andre Villas
Boas could have been something ‘special’ at Chelsea, but he never was going to
be short term, not with that dressing room. The next manager really needs to
get rid of some of those troublemakers and hope to god that the signings they
make are instant successes, like Mourinho’s were in 2005. Otherwise it looks
like Chelsea will continue to struggle to stay at the top of the English league
pyramid. Which is fine for me; as it means Liverpool have more chance of
building success. But from an unbiased perspective, it’s bad for Chelsea.

Do you agree? Disagree? Should Villas Boas have been sacked? Let me know your thoughts by
commenting below. Thanks for reading.